Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 24, 1995 TAG: 9508240079
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BEIJING LENGTH: Medium
The court also said Wu will be expelled from China, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said.
Under Chinese law, Wu must first serve the prison sentence, said a spokesman for the Wuhan Intermediate People's Court. The court in central Hubei province handed down the verdict this morning.
A U.S. Embassy spokesman said it was not yet clear when Wu would be expelled and whether Chinese authorities would insist he serve the prison term.
Wu has the right to appeal within 10 days, Xinhua said. However, Wu and his attorney have decided not to appeal, said Robert Laing, the U.S. Embassy spokesman. Appeals in China virtually never change the verdict.
The announcement came on the day when Undersecretary of State Peter Tarnoff was due to arrive in Beijing in an effort to repair the rift between the two countries.
Sino-U.S. relations are in the deepest slump since China suppressed a democracy movement in Beijing's Tiananmen Square six years ago. Besides the Wu detention, the administration was distressed by a Chinese announcement that it would conduct a second round of missile tests in the East China Sea, just north of Taiwan.
In June, China was angered by the U.S. decision to allow Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui to attend a Cornell University reunion in Ithaca, N.Y.
Secretary of State Warren Christopher, in a meeting Aug. 1 in Brunei with Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, refused to guarantee that the administration never again would issue a visa to a senior Taiwanese official.
Tarnoff, the third-ranking State Department official, was to discuss a range of issues with China's vice foreign minister in Beijing and also go to Shanghai to see U.S. diplomats there, State Department spokesman David Johnson said.
Hillary Rodham Clinton had pointedly delayed her decision about whether to participate in a U.N. conference on women next month in Beijing in hopes of seeing progress in Wu's case. No announcement on Clinton's trip was made immediately after Washington received word of the verdict.
The women's conference is set for Sept. 4-15. Republican congressional leaders have urged her to boycott the meeting in protest of China's human rights abuses. Wu's wife, Ching Lee Wu, also urged Clinton not to attend as long as Wu was being held.
by CNB